Professional Documents
Culture Documents
You are cordially invited to join us at the 4th Annual Spring Gala at Beautiful Ruttger's Bay Lake Lodge for an evening of Wonderful Food, Great Conversation and Beautiful Music.
A Thank You to the Professionals First, you all should know that the Lakes Area Restorative Justice Project would not be possible without the cooperation of the Crow Wing County Attorneys office. If the County Attorney was not willing to have cases referred to us, we would not be in business! We have received great support from Don Ryans office. Secondly, local law enforcement across the County has embraced LARJP. Again, if the local officers did not see the value in what we do, many cases that we handle would end up in court. Two of our board members are local officers, Kate Peterson from Pequot Lakes and Troy Schreifels from Brainerd. Chief Klang, from Pequot Lakes, has just joined the board. Others, from law enforcement, have served on the board in the past. Thirdly, the county court has been another source of support. Judge Zimmerman, currently the juvenile judge, has been very supportive of our work. If youve seen our video, youve seen Judge Zimmerman. Finally, the local schools have gotten behind LARJP. Chris Palmer from the Pequot district is on our board. John MacDonald, formerly the principal at the Pequot Senior High, was on our board. Other teachers have served on the board as well. What this tells me, as a lay person, is that the restorative process appeals to the people who work every day with juveniles. That means a great deal to me, as Im sure it does to the other board members. It tells us all that what we are doing makes sense. That its a better way to handle some of the mistakes that juveniles make. If it didnt, Im sure the professionals in the field would not support it. Im reminded of what our Executive Director Jim Oraskovich has said, on more than one occasion, I wish I had known about restorative concepts during my years as a school administrator. Merry Christmas to everyone and lets have a successful 2012! David Slipy, Board Chair
2011 found us completing our 6th year of program operations. Our new director, Jim Oraskovich, finished his first year with LARJP in August. Under Jims leadership we completed our Strategic Planning update. The Board reviewed our original goals and objectives, as well as the valuable input we received during our Stakeholders meeting on November 29th, 2010. With this information the Board was able to refine and redefine our goals and objectives to ensure we continue to meet the needs of our community now and over the next several years. With this update of our goals and objectives we found possible areas for expanding services to the County, using our experience and expertise with restorative justice principals to address unmet needs. Initial groundwork has been laid to start working more closely with area schools, social services and the County Attorneys office to address the ongoing and growing issues of bullying, harassment, technology miss use and truancy in our area schools. Discussions have also been started with the probation office about the possibility of being involved during the pre-dispositional investigation process. Being involved in this manner will afford victims of juvenile offender crimes being processed by the court system the opportunity to meet with offenders and provide input for restitution and reparation that they would otherwise not have. We again offered two Volunteer training sessions this year, one in the spring and another this fall. There is always a never ending need to maintain a fairly large group of volunteers to draw from as the caseload can fluctuate greatly as to when the cases are referred to us. We also added a member to our part-time paid staff group, by bringing on one of our more experienced Volunteer Facilitators, Terri Nault, as our new Volunteer Coordinator at half the time allotted for our Executive Director and Program Services Director, Stephanie Haider. Terri is now in charge of organizing, distributing, follow-up and assisting on the cases with the volunteers. This will free up time for Stephanie to work more closely with our collaborating partners in addressing the new areas of service as discussed above; getting the details worked out and handling more of that caseload. Our caseload for the year was consistent with our annual average. From the statistical information below you will see that even though our individual offender count was down, our actual victim count was the highest it has ever been. We also continue to see a large number of extended family and community members participating in our program, which greatly helps these juvenile offenders succeed and continue to make better choices. So the overall number of people involved in individual cases continues to increase as well as the complexities of the cases referred.
All Conference participants are asked to fill out a survey form to rate their satisfaction on a number of issues as they relate to the conference itself, their overall experience with our program and if they have had court experience, how does this process compare. We use this information to ensure we are meeting the needs of our clients, providing a safe and respectful environment for their needs to be addressed as well as providing a forum for areas of need to be identified. Any areas of need identified are then used to design and implement our staff and volunteer training sessions to ensure those areas of need are addressed. Based on the 2011 Conference Surveys received our Client satisfaction rates in the following areas are:
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best: Rate your satisfaction with the conference process: 9.2 Rate the process as to how fairly you were treated: 9.34 Rate as to how fairly everyone else was treated: 9.43 Rate your satisfaction on the agreed upon contract: 9.36 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you have a better understanding of how others were affected by this incident? 96% Yes Were all of your questions / concerns addressed through this process? 94.5% Yes If faced with a similar incident in the future would you choose the conferencing process? 100% Yes Do you feel participating in the conference was preferable to having the situation handed by the court? 96% Yes Financial Restitution collected for Victims in 2011 - $3,633.00. Dollar Value of Community Service Hours performed by the Offenders was over $10,800 for the almost 600 hours of work done.
Our Program is Growing & Expanding into new areas and We need You to grow with Us! Now is Your chance to make plans to sign up and attend the Spring Conference Facilitator Training and to join our Great Team of Volunteers working to make a Difference in the lives of Crime Victims, Youth and all Citizens of Crow Wing County? Every year many youth in Crow Wing County are involved in minor offenses like Fighting and small thefts, but some are involved in very serious offenses. Whatever the offense, they need to be held accountable. They also need to learn the harm their behavior caused and they need to decide not to do it again.
You can help these Youth and the Victims they have harmed!!
Volunteers generally donate about ten to fifteen hours per case and accept three to five cases per year. Cases can be scheduled at the volunteer's convenience. Volunteers work in pairs and will be mentored by LARJP staff as long as needed. Volunteers need to be 21 years of age; have their own transportation; a desire to help their community including youth, victims and families; and must complete 20 hours of training as well as four on-going in-services per year.
Three-day LARJP Training Friday, April 27th - 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm Saturday, April 28th - 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Sunday, April 29th - 12:00 pm to 7:00 pm Central Lakes College, Brainerd To get more Information or to Apply to be a Volunteer:
View our website to download description and application ~ www.lakesarearestorativejustice.org If you have any questions or would like to speak to someone about this opportunity please contact: Charmaine Shepard LARJP 4638 County Rd 11 Pequot Lakes, MN 56472 218-568-4145 email: office.assistant@larjp.org Terri Nault, Volunteer Coordinator 218-839-3522 or email: nault8@tds.net or Stephanie Haider, Director of Program Services 612-327-3162, email: stephhaider@aol.com
Presenting..Troy Houde
Troy Houde is impassioned with the desire to help others. He has lived most of his life in Crow Wing County and has three sons, two of which are following in their veteran fathers footsteps by now serving in our military forces and a younger son in high school. Troy having worked at Anderson Brothers Construction for 20 years considers his time with that company a blessing. During his time with Anderson Brothers Troy was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and had eventually moved into a desk position as he physically became unable to continue in the manual labor venue of the job. Troy, never a quitter was approached by the company in regards to his future, recognizing that Troy was going to work himself to death. That meeting afforded me the opportunity, to fulfill my passions Troy said, and the parties mutually agreed to an early retirement. Not certain of what he would then do to reach out and help others, Troy found himself in a conversation with a friend and the question was asked of him what he would like to do with his new found time. Troy thought for a moment and the words that are emblazoned upon police squads everywhere To serve and protect jumped to his mind. Troy knew that physically hed be unable to protect but he knew that without a doubt the answer was to serve. Soon thereafter, while attending church, Troy noticed a small flyer inserted in his church bulletin and saw the printed question Do you want to help people? Troy knew his answer and that was the beginning of Troys introduction to the LARJP family. Troy has been a Volunteer Conference Facilitator for two years this coming spring and says that he was surprised at the Face to Face aspect of conferencing and the impact it has on the group. He said that the statistics shared about LARJP and its success is impressive and that The most important part about what we do is seeing those results and knowing we are doing some good. Troy is now attending school and when completed will have a major in Organizational Behavior Sciences and a minor in Psychology. He considers his bout with MS a blessing in disguise and feels blessed at the opportunities it has afforded himand that is to pursue his passions.
Introducing..Patricia Madison
Pat is one of those wonderful people that always seem to have a smile on her face. Pat posses a huggable personality and loves to laugh. She has one daughter and six grandchildren ranging in age from 7 to 19 years of age and having moved from the Willmar area Pat has now lived in Brainerd for 19 years and is enjoying retirement. Pat has served for 3 years as a LARJP facilitator as a result of attending a meeting with her grand-daughter who at that time served on the LARJP youth board. Pat said, I knew this was something I would enjoying doing. She noted that what she liked most about our program was working with offenders, victims and the community, knowing that there is a way to keep the youth (offenders) out of the court system and have them accountable for their actions. Pat said, My first experience as a facilitator was scary but well worth the end result She said that she has learned that Being a LARJP facilitator is a challenge in itself. She said that the unexpected difficulties come as a result of organizing the individuals and contacting everyone to actually meet at one time. Having worked with developmentally disabled individuals for 30 years she now finds time to volunteer for the Lake Area Senior Activity Center and RSVP in Brainerd. She also finds time to volunteer for BINGO at the American Legion and to lend her multiple life experiences to the LARJP program as a volunteer conference facilitator.
Our Mission:
The Lakes Area Restorative Justice Project is a community directed, operated and supported nonprofit organization located in Crow Wing County, whose mission is to restore community by involving juveniles who have caused harm, the people who were harmed, and local citizens in a process which addresses the needs of the victim, holds the youth accountable for restoration, and promotes healing for all.
January 2012
23rd Fundraising Committee Mtg 8 am, Brainerd Executive Committee Mtg 4 pm, Pequot Lks
February 2012
21st Regular Board Meeting 7 pm Pequot Lakes
April 2012
20th Spring Gala discount ticket price deadline New Facilitator Training See page 5
27th 29th
May 2012
4th Spring Gala Fundraiser See Page 1